First
by helloalexwinn
Summary: Each one feels like a first kill, like the death of something inside him he can't afford to lose.


I wanted to try something that had a little more weight, and challenged myself to write it in under 1000 words. Goals, met. There's not a lot of movement in this piece, but I like the stillness aspect of it. Writing the characters in this situation was difficult, but I think the piece explores the worst part of their job reasonably well.

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.

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Gaby is four drinks past her limit and Napoleon well en route to the same level of intoxication when the question pops up.

"Who was your first kill?"

Across the room, Illya watches the pain settle in Napoleon's eyes as he swirls his glass idly before taking a hearty swig. Gaby had made her first kill earlier that day, shooting a man straight through the heart. Though it had been necessary for the three of them to escape, Illya had been quietly blaming himself and the situation for the past several hours, and he knew Napoleon had been doing the same.

"The pain will go away, Gaby," Napoleon says instead, still swirling his glass. "You did what you had to do for us to survive. It was a necessity of the circumstance."

Gaby huffs. "You did not answer my question," she says, her words beginning to slur. She turns away from Napoleon before he can speak again, crossing the room towards Illya. "If you will not tell me yours, then Illya will tell me his."

Fear rolls through him in fat, ugly lumps, like a piece of food too large to swallow. It's the second time this year he's felt fear like this, and he hates that it's becoming a habit. (There's a reason KGB agents are trained to be solitary killers — no attachments, no emotions — though he'd never trade anything to be somewhere else.)

"No, thank you," he says quietly, uncomfortably. He doesn't like denying Gaby anything, but there are parts of him that are best left undiscussed. He doesn't want or need her original fears and prejudices to be confirmed.

Her gaze switches back and forth between them, a layer of tears coating her eyes. Illya knows, and he's certain Napoleon knows as well, that she isn't asking these questions to learn about them. She needs confirmation right now, empathy. She's going to remember her first kill forever, and she needs to know that she isn't alone in this experience.

For once, neither Illya nor Napoleon know what to tell her.

Silence lapses between the three. Gaby refills her drink. Napoleon continues to swirl his. Illya tries to find another chess play. The weight of the day — of all their days — settles on their shoulders. Death isn't new to any of them, but even after several years, Illya finds that Death is still unsettling.

Eventually, Gaby falls asleep next to Illya, her face pressed into his arm, her feet tucked under his thighs. She'll wake up in pain in the morning if she stays like this, so with Napoleon's help, Illya manages to move her to the bed where she can be wrapped in the security of warmth and softness when all she dreams is cold and awful.

Napoleon doesn't bother nodding his head towards the balcony; Illya is already at the door.

Neither speak — there's always more said in silence — but Illya knows they're thinking the same thing. Images flash through his mind, mangled and bloody and cruel, a name flashing with each one. Andreis and Ivans and Dmitris and Vlads. Sergei. Alexander. Each one feels like a first kill, like the death of something inside him he can't afford to lose.

"You know," Napoleon says at last, "I can name my first for just about anything. First pet, first girl I kissed, first girl I had sex with. But the first man I killed — " he pauses, heaving a deep breath.

Illya tries to remember how to breathe as well.

"I don't know who my first kill was," Napoleon says, the words tumbling out like a dam overflowing with water. His eyes never part from the building across the street. "We were in the trenches, shooting blindly into the fog, and when the echoes stopped and we crossed no man's land, I kept staring at the dead bodies thinking, 'maybe I killed him' or 'my bullet stopped his heart.' I have a hundred first kills, and I may not have even killed one of them."

Illya nods. "They would not tell me who my first kill was," he says, his chest tightening, "so I used what they taught me to find out. It was — it was." The words fold up in his throat, an excruciating weight presses against his lungs.

"Your father." Illya nods. "What did you do?"

This is marginally easier to discuss, but only just. "I found one of the men who had taken advantage of my mother and killed him first."

Napoleon swallows. "Did you still have to kill him?"

"Yes." There's a violent image printed on his brain, one he thinks about every time he loses control. His father nodding his head for Illya to make the kill. Blood on the knife. Blood on his hands. "But it was my second."

"What was his name?" Gaby's voice is soft, a clinking wind chime on this cool evening. "The first?"

Illya glances at Napoleon, wonders if he's known she was there the entire time or not, assumes that he probably has. He isn't surprised she listened. He hadn't wanted her to know, hadn't wanted to burden her with his own history. Even so, he's somewhat glad she did, if only because it might help her sleep.

"Sergei," Illya says, his voice nearly inaudible. But Gaby's eyes are focused on him, red and puffy and grateful. "His name was Sergei."

* * *

Kind of a downer, I know. I'm sorry. Hopefully you enjoyed, and my next story will be not as depressing. In theory. Anyway, please review, because they brighten my day so much.


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